The best speaker you ever heard?

The best speaker I've heard, and the reason I got into this ridiculous hobby, was the Avanti II from Audio Physics. I demo'd the speaker using a cd that I had dozens of times and, in fact, was listening to in the car on the ride to the store. Hearing the disc through the Avanti was like hearing a completely different recording and hearing it for the first time. The word magical gets thrown around a lot in this hobby, but that experience was transformative for me. Once I heard the Avanti, there was no going back to my Sony receiver. The experience was akin to the first time I got to really drive an E30 M3. After that experience, getting back into my RX-7 seemed like a punishment. The great thing about this hobby is that there is equipment out there to suit everyone's taste. While I bemoan the degradation of audio quality brought about by the proliferation of iPods and crappy earphones, I also think it is great that high end manufacturers are having to diversify their offerings to bring some of the high end magic to a lower price point. I only wish that more people could experience what I did when I heard the Avanti.

I've had my Nestorovic 5AS speakers for over 20 years and have never even thought about getting speakers since. Too bad Mile Nestorovic is gone. I sometimes wonder who will die first, me or the speakers?

I have always preferred NOT to "hear the speaker." It should be as transparent as possible and just give me the music as if it were live in the room. Acoustic Research 3a's were tested just such a way with real musicians playing "against" the speakers and real musicians trying to guess which was playing. They couldn't tell. My 3a's have been part of my family since 1969. They'll soon be joined by some AR 9Ls in perfect condition, extremely difficult to find this way and I'm looking forward to getting all this tweaked with good tube amplification [digital conversion to analog.]

Sorry so windy. My first response! Great website!
Cereza

"with real musicians playing "against" the speakers and real musicians trying to guess which was playing. They couldn't tell."

Impressive.
I'd be interested to read about it. Is there a link or article or something you can point to?

Sebrof

I lifted this from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_Research

"In the early 1960s, AR conducted a series of over 75 live vs. recorded demonstrations throughout the U.S. in which the sound of a live string quartet was alternated with echo-free recorded music played through a pair of AR-3s. In this “ultimate” subjective test of audio quality, the listeners were largely unable to detect the switch from live to recorded, a strong testament to Acoustic Research's audio quality."